How to Lose Weight in a Week (or 2 Weeks)

So you’ve got to fit into your new dress by the end of the week. Or maybe you have a big date and you want to look as trim as possible. Or it might just be a case where you have a personal challenge to lose weight within a designated amount of time. There are any number of reasons why someone would want to lose weight in a week, and all of them are valid to the person who is looking to drop a few pounds. There is no magic secret to how to lose weight in a week since it’s a simple matter of science. You basically just have to use very basic concepts in order to burn the amount of calories you need to get the results you want. Obviously this is easier said than done, and you also have to have your overall health in mind as well.

Safety concerns

let’s get this out of the way first – you have to be careful about quick weight loss and losing too many pounds in a short amount of time. That’s not to say losing weight in a week is not something you shouldn’t pursue, you just have to be careful about the way you do it. At most, you can safely lose around two pounds per week without jeopardizing your body or creating conditions that will likely have you gaining that weight back in the long run. Two pounds is a healthy goal to aim for and there is nothing wrong with having this as your standard. Obviously, people who are looking to figure out how to lose weight in a week might have bigger numbers in mind, just make sure to make proper adjustments so that you aren’t putting yourself in jeopardy. The same applies if you are looking to lose weight in 2 weeks, and it’s far better to plan for the long term anyways.

Preparation

When it comes to losing weight, being prepared and organized is always going to come in handy. In fact, in many cases it will mean the difference between success and failure. So on day one of your weight loss plan, you get a bit of a break because you don’t actually have to start with healthy eating or exercise at all. Rather, spend some time getting your affairs in order and taking a careful look at your own daily eating habits. You basically already know that in order to lose weight in a week or 2 weeks, you are going to have to burn more calories than you consume. But more importantly, what do you eat on a daily basis? What are you planning to heat for this week? Is it any different than what you would normally have and is it something that you can stick with? You might even want to start up a fat loss journal so that you were can record every piece of information that you come across in addition to writing down your thoughts and feelings about the overall process. Keeping organized in this way will be even more essential if you have a long-term plan and are looking to figure out how to lose weight in 2 weeks rather than just one.

Lose weight in a week – let the journey begin

1. So where do you start?

The interesting thing about losing weight is that need to take things day by day but also have an overall plan in place as well. That means you have to carefully balance your focus so that you can keep on track. It might be tempting on day one of your diet to just simply stop eating and exercise I crazy. If you do that for seven days in a row, you will undoubtedly lose weight but not without a price. No professional fitness trainer or doctor would ever condone that type of approach to weight loss, and you can rest assured that weight gained in this way is going to come back eventually. So one of the first steps you should take is to get rid of any temptation for shortcuts or starvation because that should never be an option.

2. Eliminate the easy stuff.

There are things we eat on a daily basis that serve no nutritional value or contain high calories, sodium, or sugar. Things like soft drinks find a way into our daily diets relatively easily and we don’t really notice it. One of the first things you can do is to simply get rid of these things which shouldn’t be too hard if we’re talking about losing weight in a week or 2 weeks. Remember that one can of Coke is roughly 160 calories which can immediately be eliminated from your diet simply by not drinking it.

3. Healthy food choices.

On day one of your weight loss plan you should make it a point to plan your diet for the week (or 2 weeks). Obviously it won’t be set in stone, but it helps to have a general outline to prevent you from eating whatever you want whenever you feel like it. An example of a healthy menu for the day would look something like this:

Notice that for this one week you aren’t going to be a things like beef or pork. If you want snacks, then go ahead and load up on vegetables or fruits throughout the day. Cut out things like coffee and tea as well since you are going to be drinking a lot of water during this time. You’ll also notice that you don’t have to sacrifice taste or come up with a diet composed mainly of rice cakes and tofu to lose weight in a week. You can still enjoy tasty foods as long as you take the time to prepare them in a healthy way and partner them with good side dishes.

4. Exercise daily.

You knew it was coming, someone was bound to tell you that if you want to lose weight and a week then you have to exercise. Some people have a problem with this because they might not have been active for a while, while others simply hate to work out. But the key is to burn calories and if you want quick results you can’t just do that by altering your diet. You have to get your body in motion whether it’s by walking, running, or swimming.

Now here is where math comes into play. The first thing you want to do is to establish your basal metabolic rate or the amount of calories that you consume simply by being alive. There are calculators for that on the Internet where you simply type in your age, height and other minor details to determine your BMR. Once you know those details you will be able to determine how much you can eat without gaining weight, or more importantly, how many further calories you have to burn in order to lose weight.

In order to lose one pound you have to burn off a total of 3500 calories. So let’s say under normal circumstances you have a BMR of 2000. If you eat 2000 calories in a day then you will not lose or gain any weight. However, if through a combination of diet and exercise your total caloric intake is only 1500, then you are 500 calories closer to that magic 3500 number where you lose one pound. So now you see why slow weight loss is recommended and two pounds per week can actually be considered a bit too high for some people.

Even at this rate used in this example, reducing your caloric intake by 500 calories per day is quite considerable and by the end of the week if you do it each day, you will have lost one pound. Imagine the type of stress you put on your body if you doubled this rate! It is doable, but it’s far more preferable to lose weight in 2 weeks or aim for a long-term approach.

But obviously this article is about how to lose weight in one week so you can use the same principles to do exactly that. Keep in mind the same methods apply if you are looking for how to lose weight in 2 weeks. You will find that it gets much easier however, if you look towards a long-term approach and do this on a daily basis for several weeks.

So there you have it – the basic formula.

You know that burning 3500 calories will result in one pound of weight loss. You have seven days to work with. How many calories can you save yourself by healthier food choices? And how many calories can you effectively burn off in a day through exercise? These numbers will be up to you and how hard you want to work but whether you are trying to lose weight in 2 weeks or just one – this is the primary premise you are working with. Good luck and best of health!